1931
After five seasons on the South Side, Moe Berg was sold to Cleveland. The catcher epitomized a replacement players, with a sum total of -0.2 WAR in his Chicago years — all subpar but for 1929 (0.7 WAR, .287 batting average, and 107 games that would end up being his career high, by far).
Berg would play for nine more years in the majors after his time with the White Sox, but would eventually gain much more reknown as an OSS spy prior to and during World War II.
1959 The season opener to a memorable,
pennant-winning year started in Detroit, where Billy Pierce faced Jim Bunning. The White Sox blew a 7-4 lead when the Tigers got three runs in the eighth inning, and matters weren’t decided until the 14th. That’s when Nellie Fox, who hit home runs as often as he struck out, blasted a two-run shot to give the Sox a 9-7 win. Fox went 5-for-7 and knocked in three runs that afternoon, despite freezing temperatures. Catcher Sherm Lollar had three hits for the Sox, who used seven pitchers in the game.
1961
White Sox outfielder Jim Rivera was always good for the unexpected. Right before the Sox played in Washington to open the season in the first-ever game for the “new Senators,” President John Kennedy threw out the first ball. Rivera came up with it and was escorted to the President’s box, where both Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson signed the ball.
After Rivera looked at it, he said to the President, “You’ll have to do better than that, John. This is a scribble I can hardly read!” So Kennedy, in block letters, spelled out his name on the baseball.
Oh … the Sox won the game, 4-3, after coming back with single runs in the seventh and eighth innings. It was the first game the Washington Senators played as a new expansion team, as the previous version of the team was moved to Minnesota.
1962
In an Opening Day, 2-1 win over the Angels, Sherm Lollar caught an MLB record-tying six foul popups: Two apiece in the second, sixth and ninth innings. Juan Pizarro went the distance for the win, taken in walk-off fashion on a single with two outs in the bottom of the 10th — by Lollar! There was something in the air at Comiskey Park, as 11 of the 53 outs in teh game came via foul pop out.
1968
For the White Sox and the country, the old good days were a thing of the past. The social unrest on the West Side of Chicago after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King held the Opening Day crowd at Comiskey Park to fewer than 8,000. The Sox got shut out by Cleveland’s Sonny Siebert, 9-0.
It was the first of a franchise-record 10 straight losses to open the season. They were outscored in that stretch, 42-13, and were shut out three times. Coupled with five straight losses to close out 1967, the White Sox ended up losing 15 regular season games in a row.
1979
Embarrassed after a lackluster Opening Day loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, 10-2, owner Bill Veeck offered fans free admission to the next home game.
1981
If you had written the script and pitched it to Hollywood, it would have been refused on the grounds of corniness — but reality is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Carlton Fisk, native son of New England, returned to play at Boston for the first time, on Opening Day as a member of the White Sox. Fisk was declared a free agent after the Red Sox mailed him his contract late, and he left when White Sox co-owner Eddie Einhorn and GM Roland Hemond immediately contacted Fisk’s agent, Jack Sands, and worked out a seven-year, $2.9 million deal.
With a new team, in a new uniform, Fisk immediately began making Boston pay, as he ripped a three-run home run in the eighth inning off of Bob Stanley to put the White Sox ahead, 3-2, in a game they’d win, 5-3.
1989
For the second straight year, Carlton Fisk broke his hand. In 1988, he was hurt in mid-May and sat out for 10 weeks. This season, the catcher would be out “only” through the end of May. To prevent further damage to his hand, Fisk had a metal plate inserted to provide strength. The 41-year-old would play for four more seasons, with almost all of his games still coming at catcher.
2006
The White Sox spoiled Detroit’s home opener with a 5-3 win — and all the runs coming via homer. Joe Crede and Jim Thome slugged two-run blasts, and Paul Konerko a solo shot in support of Freddy García’s 100th career victory.
It is also the second win of a 12-of-13 streak that took the White Sox from fourth place, at 1-4, to first (13-5).
